They weaved through endless rows of blinking servers, each humming with dead futures. Shadows danced across the metal walls, flickering like ghosts whispering from behind the screens. Aven kept glancing over his shoulder, half-expecting the shadow creature to burst through the door at any moment.
Rhea pulled him toward a central console glowing faintly blue. "Here," she breathed. "This is where the files converge."
Aven watched as she slammed the notebook onto the panel, her fingers typing in rapid commands. Lines of corrupted code scrolled past, fragments of possible timelines: wars that never happened, cities floating in the sky, stars going dark.
Then a file flashed into focus.
AVEN_OU_273: STATUS—PENDING DELETION.
"That's me," Aven whispered.
Rhea nodded. "I'm going to erase it. If we're right, that will cut off whatever link the creature has to you."
Aven felt his pulse hammer in his throat. "Do it."
Rhea typed a final command.
Suddenly, the room shook violently. The servers screamed with static, and the walls cracked. From the far end of the hall, the shadow creature poured into the chamber, roaring like a hurricane.
"It knows!" Aven shouted.
Rhea slammed the delete key. "Hold it back!" she screamed.
Aven grabbed a loose metal rod and swung it at the shadow as it surged forward, the impact sending tremors up his arm. But the creature re-formed instantly, tendrils of black reaching for his throat.
Rhea cried out. "Almost… done…!"
The console flashed: FILE DELETED.
Aven felt a surge of energy blast outward. The creature shrieked and recoiled, fragments of its dark form breaking apart, dissolving into thin air. The servers sparked, sending out waves of flickering light that burned through the creature's mass.
Then, silence.
Rhea collapsed to her knees, breathing hard. "It worked," she whispered. "We cut you free."
Aven dropped the metal rod, his hands trembling. "Then what happens to us now?"
Rhea looked up at him, eyes glassy with exhaustion. "Now… we find out what's left of this broken future."
Outside the room, the first hints of daylight broke through the cracks in the museum's concrete shell.